Fun and Games
by Imakecakes
Summary: One shot (possibly could become a longer story in the future). Lucy is browsing through the internet one day when she stumbles onto the game of MageQuest. There she meets the fiery Level 55 mage Natsu in game. NALU.


**Hi I'm Imakecakes, known for making cool stories and later taking them down which I am so sorry for. I also tend to abandon my stories because I get really bad writers block. I'm bad, I know. So I am taking a whole new approach to this story thing. I am attempting to write 'One Shot' style stories that sound good on their own or if I decide later, I can make a full story out of them. So let's see how it goes. Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.**

 **Fun and Games**

Lucy was browsing through the internet as per usual. She was doing a little bit of research for a paper for history class but mostly she was skimming through clothing sites and adding things into her cart that she knew that she couldn't afford. It was a hard life being a poor college student. Just 2 more years though. Just 2 more years until she was walking out of Magnolia University with her diploma in hand that told the world that she was qualified to teach English to high schoolers. It wasn't exactly the dream job that she wanted. She wanted to be a novelist more than anything but teaching high school English class is what would pay the bills and put food on the table.

"Ugghh I wish I had money!" she whined as she added another cute top into her cart. "Okay I really need to stop."

She clicked out of the site, not before letting a small whimper escape her lip at all the clothes she had so carefully picked out.

"Need to get this paper done." She told herself. "No distractions. Now…."

"Medieval times" she typed into the search bar. She clicked the search bar and the search engine brought up the most popular pages on medieval times. Clicking the top one she began the long process of note taking for her history paper.

7 sites later, and about halfway done with her research, Lucy found herself getting sluggish.

"Getting a little low on energy." Lucy said, leaning her face into her hand that had her elbow propped on the table top. "This is so boring."

Deciding that she needed a light snack, so she went to her kitchen and grabbed a package of goldfish and then settled back in her swivel chair at her desk. She stared blankly at her computer screen that was full of boring text that seemed to turn into a foreign language the longer she looked at it. Deciding that she deserved to take a teeny break, she quickly opened a new tab and typed 'YouTube'. The site loaded, and she began to browse through all the suggested videos when an ad to the left side of her screen caught her eye.

"Suggested for you: MageQuest"

Lucy had seen lots of suggested ads before, mostly clothing, beauty and other girl stuff but never had it suggested a computer game for her.

"Maybe because of all the medieval stuff I've been looking up?" she asked herself as she studied the ad. It was vivid with color and the art style so lively. By the looks of it, it was somewhat medieval looking, but it had its own kind of style to it. Curiosity got the best of her and so she clicked the ad and was automatically transported to the game's official site.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of MageQuest! The best, free medieval style game out right now!" Lucy read out loud. "Enter a world full of mages, guilds, dragons and magic! Sign up now!"

Lucy had never really been much into gaming. Sure, she had played a few rounds of Call of Duty that one time with a friend way back in high school. And sadly, not to long ago she danced her drunk butt off to Just Dance at a house party another time but that really didn't give her much skill set at gaming. But maybe a computer game would be different? She had long slender fingers that reached the keys comfortably at her computer and don't get me started on how quick her mouse hand was. It had picked up speed from all that sale shopping that she did online when she had extra money. She was the Queen of anything on sale.

She tilted her head from side to side, staring at her screen trying to decide if she should just exit out of the screen and just finish her work or click the make an account link and give it a try.

"Well, I guess I can just delete my account if I don't like it." She shrugged as she clicked the link and began to type in account info. "Not like I have anything to lose."

Once she had finished typing in all the necessary information, her account was official created. She clicked on the 'Make a Character' tab and started to scroll through all the different types of mage characters. None really caught her eye though. She really didn't like any of all the basic characters such as your tanks, healers, etc. And she did not even bother to glance at any of the premium characters that you had to pay actual money for. But as soon as she got passed the premium characters that's when she found it.

"Celestial Mage" the character was labeled. She clicked on the information tab of the character and read out loud. "Are you a lover of stars and all the mysteries that they hold? Well why not become a celestial mage! You get the power of the Zodiac and the ability to knock out enemies with the fury of the heavens and stars! Limited time character for new players ONLY."

"Knock out enemies with the fury of the heavens and stars?" Lucy repeated. "Well, hell yeah."  
She clicked on the celestial mage and began to customize her character. For the most part Lucy stuck to how she looked in real life. She thought it would be cute to make a character that looked like her and so she did. She had to admit, her character looked so cute with her half up side ponytail and her blue miniskirt and white top.

"Get ready MageQuest because here I come!" she said, typing in 'Lucy' as her character name and clicking yes to enter the game.

After a few boring moments with the loading screen her character appeared in the middle of her computer screen. She appeared to be in a town. A small dialogue screen popped up on the bottom of her playing screen.

"Welcome new player to the port town of Hargeon! This town is a great start for a beginning player like yourself! Feel free to explore and get to know the controls! Tutorial while start after you click next."

Lucy went through the boring tutorial of learning all the controls. After she learned the movement controls she just kept clicking through the useless dialogue so she could get out of the tutorial and into the real game.

"Congratulations! You finished the tutorial! Now begin your adventure as mage!" the words flashed across the screen long enough to read before disappearing.

"Finally!" Lucy groaned before beginning to walk around the town. When she finally thought she was free from the game bombarding her she got dings signally that she had notifications. Eager to get rid of them quickly, she clicked on the tab and began to open them up.

"Here are 20,000 jewels to start off!" she read the first notification. "Mana this, someone trading near you…. Blah blah blah. Hint to find your first celestial gate key. What's that?"

She clicked on the notification and carefully read the message. What was this celestial key? And what did it do? Obviously, something to do with her magic ability. So, she followed the message instructions and walked around trying to find the magic shop that the message said that would have the key. After wandering around for about 30 minutes, she had finally found it and entered the shop. She was greeted by the computer automated messages about how to trade and barter with the shop owner.

"I have all the latest goods. Let me show you a few!" the shop owner said. The game opened a small window and displayed all the wares of the shop owner. Lucy carefully scanned through each tab in his wares trying to find anything the had the word key in it. She finally found it under his miscellaneous tab.

"Canis Minor Key: Nikora." she read aloud. "Canis? Is that like Canine? Aw it must be a doggy! I have to get it….. 20,000 JEWELS?! EXCUSE ME?"

She pouted as she stared at her computer screen. All she had was 20,000 jewels. How was she supposed to get more money if she spent it all on this one damn key? Thinking back to the tutorial, she remember that she could attempt to barter with the shop owner. So, she clicked on the key and then clicked on the 'Barter' option.

"Barter failed. Level up 'Barter' for a better chance!" popped up a little window.

"But I want the key!" she whined as she clicked on the key again. This time she noticed the option called 'Feminine Charm'. "Well, let's give that a shot. I'm cute and new. I'm sure I'll get it for free!" she said eagerly as she clicked it.

"Aw, come on. How much is it really worth? I'm sure you can cut me a deal?" her character said to the magic shop owner. It also emoted a kiss and put it's hands on it's extremely curvy hips.

…

"I CAN'T BELIEVE HE ONLY KNOCKED OFF 1,000 JEWEL! THAT STUBBORN OLD GEEZER MUST BE BLIND!" Lucy grunted angrily as she led her character through the streets of Hargeon. "So much for using my Feminine Charm."

She was walking along the streets when she reached a plaza full of other characters. All of them were girls which seemed to be stuck in some sort of frenzy. They were all giggling and hearts were flying out of their characters heads.

"Hey, do you know what's going on?" Lucy's chat bubble popped up next to a female player that hadn't been affected by whatever was happening to the others in the game.

"Salamander! Salamander is here!" the girl squealed. "Isn't he just the greatest!"

The girl's character then started to giggle and hearts began floating out of her head.

"What the…. WHAT?" Lucy said as she looked at her screen.

"Your character has been temporarily stunned by a love spell! The longer you stay under the more health you lose! If you die, then all your characters belongings will be dropped, and other characters can pick them up. Hurry up and break the spell before it is too late!" read the screen above her characters head that currently had little hearts flying out of it.

"Hurry before it is too late? I can't lose this key! I just got it! I don't know what to do!" she said as she panickily hit different buttons on her keyboard.

…

"I never want to ride another train again!" Natsu said to his computer screen.

"You look a little green!" said the blue cat with wings that was hovering next to his character that looked clearly dizzy.

"You say that every time, buddy." Natsu said to his virtual companion as his character tried to shake off its' disorientation. "Well, we made it."

"Hargeon looks so big! Do you think they have lots of yummy fishies here?" the blue cat asked excitedly.

"I just put fish in your inventory 30 minutes ago!" Natsu said to the screen, knowing that the blue cat couldn't answer him back.

"Let's go explore!" said the blue cat.

"Aye." Natsu agreed and began to move his character forward to begin exploration of the new town. They heard that there was supposable 'salamander' spotting in this town. This spotting was super important to Natsu because one of the legendary quests of Natsu's character was to find a dragon. Then and only then his character would unlock some sort of cool super power and Natsu being the super MageQuest nerd that he was, absolutely NEEDED to unlock the achievement. In Natsu's mind, salamander = lizard which = dragon. So bad-a-bing, bad-a-boom, he took a nauseating train ride here and was prepared to search high and low for the 'salamander'.

He and happy slowly moseyed their way through town, Natsu scanning the area carefully for any signs of a dragon. But sadly, there was nothing. No scorch marks. No burning buildings. Nada. Just a giant crowd of girl characters with hearts swirling around EVERYWHERE.

"What do you think all the commotion is about?" Happy's speech bubble popped up on Natsu's screen.

"Well it looks like a love spell, but I don't know how someone could have stunned all these people at once. Lucky us it only works on the opposite sex of the player. So, no love spell stun for us. Let's check it out." Natsu answered back. He and Happy inched there way closer to the crowd, eager to see what this crowd was about. He scanned the area looking for someone to question, his eyes landing on a blonde character directly in front of him. "Here, let's ask this girl Happy. She seems nice."

Natsu clicked on the character in front of him and began to read her basic information while his arrow hovered over the private chat option.

"Celestial Mage, huh?" Natsu said, reading here character info out loud. "I've never heard of that kind of mage before. Must be rare or something. And Level 1. She is a newbie. Her name is Lucy. Well, let's just ask Lucy what is going on."

Natsu tapped out a message on his keyboard and pressed enter.

…..

"Awww come on!" Lucy whined to her computer. "I'm already at half health already! I don't want to die alone and on the street!"

She pouted as she stared at the screen. Lucy about jumped out of her seat when a loud ding chimed from her computer. Her eyes wandered the screen looking for a notification and discovered it was the private voice chat. Curious to see who would message her she quickly opened the message.

"From Natsu: Hey do you know how so many people got stunned with a love spell? Or who cast it?"

Her eyes wandered the screen looking for who could possibly be messaging her but there were too many hearts that she couldn't see a thing. So, Lucy quickly hit the reply button and typed out her answer.

…

Natsu stared patiently at his screen waiting for a reply from the blonde character in front of him.

"From Lucy: Please help me out! I'm not sure exactly who cast it exactly. All I know is everyone is talking about 'Salamander' and how he is so dreamy. I am new to the game and I got stunned by that stupid love spell that you are talking about and losing health fast! I've already been stuck like this for at least 5 minutes! Do you think you can break it?"

Natsu read her message and that's when it all made sense. Some person on the server had managed to get around the system of the game and stun more than one person with a love spell. Usually the typical love spells in game stun a single character for 30 seconds at the most. This person must have hacked something if he managed to get a whole plaza full of people under the love spells effect. Who even knows how long it has been going on for. The person must have planned to slowly kill off all these people's characters and take off with their belongings once they die. Natsu could feel the anger building up in his chest. He hated hackers. He needed to help all these characters.

He quickly typed up a message and sent it to Lucy before heading into the very center of the plaza.

"Well here goes nothing." He shrugged before hitting his keys in the right order for one of his attacks.

….

Lucy's computer dinged with a notification for another message from this Natsu guy.

"From Natsu: Hold on one sec. I hope you have enough health that you don't die."

"Die?" Lucy shrieked. "What does he mean di-"

"FIRE DRAGON WING ATTACK!" a voice yelled in game.

Out of the corner of Lucy's screen was a wave of what appeared to be fire that was heading right towards her character.

"Oh no!" Lucy screamed as she covered her eyes at the last possible second. She took a few deep breaths before peaking through her fingers to look at her screen.

"10 health! All I have is 10 health left!?" Lucy said with disbelief as she stared at her character's stats.

"Hey you're alive." Popped up a chat bubble. It belonged to a pink haired male character. He was dressed in black vest with a pair of white baggy pants. The name over his character's name read 'Natsu'. So, this is the guy that was messaging her before.

"Yeah. I'm alive." Lucy typed out the message. "Only 10 health left though."

"Well that's better than the rest of these people." Natsu typed back. "They probably only have 5 if they were under longer than you."

"More like 2." A speech bubble popped up beside them.

"So, you're the one that did that fire spell!" yet another speech bubble popped up.

"I had to use ALL of my healing items just to get all of my health back up because of you!"

"My armor health is so low because of your stupid attack!"

"Yeah thanks a lot, buddy!"

Natsu and Lucy's characters stood completely still as they were surrounded by tons of angry speech bubbles. Lucy felt kind of bad for this Natsu character. He literally just broke everyone's spell, and no one was bothering to thank him. All they could do is nag him about all the stuff they almost loss.

"From Lucy: Hey, don't take anything these ungrateful people say to heart. You saved all of them. They should be thanking you. This was all that stupid Salamander's fault."

Lucy typed out the message and sent it directly to Natsu using their previous chat. It took him literally 30 seconds to type and send back a response.

"From Natsu: Nah, I don't mind. I was happy to help them out."

Ding.

"From Lucy: Well thank you. Thank you for saving them and me."

They stood awkwardly by each other as the angry crowd began to disperse.

"From Lucy: Say….."

"From Lucy: I heard that there was a restaurant nearby."

"From Lucy: I kind of need to restore my health and I know you must have used up some of your mana up as well. What if I buy you something mana replenishing for you as a sort of thank you?"

Lucy finished typing out the last message and sent it to Natsu, eagerly awaiting a response. It felt weird asking the character out for virtual food. Is this how the kids now a day ask someone on a date? But this wasn't a date. Just a thank you meal between two stranger virtual characters.

Ding.

"From Natsu: Sure :)"

…..

"From Lucy: My name is Lucy. It is really nice to meet you, uh Natsu." Lucy managed to type out into the chat as she watched his character stuff his face with mana replenishing foods. Well there goes the jewels she saved at the magic shop. "And Happy was it?"

"You talk a lot." The blue cat's speech bubble popped up onto the screen.

"What!?" Lucy yelled at her screen. "I've barely even typed out 2 sentences!"

Ignoring the rude cats comment she typed out another message to Natsu.

"From Lucy: So, what brings you guys into the beginner town of Hargeon?"

Natsu's computer dinged with a new message from that Lucy character. She sure liked to message a lot. He put down his bowl of instant ramen that he was eating in real life to type her out a message.

"From Natsu: We heard that there was supposed to be a 'salamander' in town so we came to check out to see if it was the dragon that we have been looking for."

Ding.

"From Lucy: You were searching for a dragon in the middle of a beginner town?"

Ding.

"From Natsu: Yes? Turned out to be a big fake though. I bet you the guy that was this so called Salamander couldn't even use fire magic. Just a hacker trying to get free stuff."

"From Natsu: ….. wait a second."

"From Lucy: Yeah, glad you realized that a dragon in a beginner town sounded weird. And that guy was a real jerk. Thanks again for your help earlier. Well I probably should get going. Any recommendations on where I should go that I won't die?"

Ding.

"From Natsu: Well any populated town should be fairly safe, but it is always better to travel with another player or even a group. Do you have a group?"

"From Lucy: No. I don't know anyone that plays this game."

Natsu stared at his screen and put on his serious thinking face. Then an idea popped into his head and he quickly typed a message to Lucy.

"From Natsu: Hey, what if you join up with me? I can make sure that you don't die. I'm a strong level 55 player."

"From Lucy: How can I know if I can trust you?"

"From Natsu: ? I just saved your life? Along with other people's lives?"

"From Lucy: Point taken."

Lucy sent her last message and then a notification popped up in the middle of her screen.

"Player: Natsu, Level 55 (Dragon Slayer Mage), wishes to form a team 'Team Natsu' with you. Do you wish to EXCEPT or DECLINE?"

Lucy puckered her lips in thought. Should she just trust a total stranger and join his team? Or just decline his offer and figure out how to play solo? She weighed the pros and cons of each decision in her head and made a choice. Her mouse hovered over her choice and she clicked it.

…..

Natsu's computer brought up a notification window in the center of his screen.

"Congratulations on forming 'Team Natsu'! Current members: Natsu and Lucy."

Natsu smiled to himself as he exited out of the window and dove back into the world of MageQuest. Now with his new teammate by his side.

 **So what did you think? I was really heavily inspired by the anime, "And you thought there was never a girl online". It is a really good anime so you should try watching it! I did not come up with the name of the game myself. The credit goes to whoever came up with it first. I saw the name in a few fanfictions so I decided to go with it. Please leave me a review or a favorite so I know you liked it! I enjoy having feedback. Have a lovely day!**


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